doing so. Immediately I was awake again, and when Malcolm took my hand in his and led me up the stairs to the top floor of his mansion I could hardly breathe.
It was warm at the top again. The photography studio he had installed had been expanded, with more lights. The black backdrop was still there, though now it curved around itself, leaving a small cave to catch the light.
A few feet away from it lay a clean drop cloth and two pots of paint, white on the outside so I couldn't tell what color they were. Next to the drop cloth stood a full length mirror.
Malcolm led me to the drop cloth. “Allow me,” he whispered, and began to take off my clothes. I swallowed and let him.
He kissed every inch of skin he revealed as he pulled my blouse from my arms, slid the bra from my chest, eased my skirt down over my thighs, helped me kick my heels off. When at last I was completely nude, he helped me sit down, then drew a dark silk cloth from his pocket.
“Allow me,” he said. It was neither a command nor a request. Just a simple statement of fact. Yes, of course I would allow him. I smiled slightly and inclined my head toward him, and he tied the blindfold around my eyes. The light of the room was eclipsed, and I lapsed into darkness.
Warm dry hands helped me lie down on the cloth, and I lay there, trembling in anticipation as to what he might do. But all that happened was the gentle pop of a can of body paint and a brush laid against my skin.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
He painted me.
It seemed to take forever. The brush wandered this way and that way, and I shivered beneath it, but that was all that happened. He painted my body in no particular order, sending the brush over the curves and valleys wherever the fancy seemed to take him. The warmth of the room and the soothing strokes of the brush put me in almost a trance, and when he turned me over to do my back, I nearly fell asleep on my stomach.
After a long time, his hand on my hair jolted me back to reality.
“Careful,” he said as I made to sit up. “Don't disturb it too much.”
I nodded and slowly drew myself to my feet, my skin caked in paint. His hands alighted on my shoulders and gently turned me. “I'm pointing you at the mirror,” he told me. “Are you ready.”
I was ready. I nodded.
With a flourish, he untied the blindfold. “Now... open your eyes.”
I did. My eyes caught my image in the mirror, and I inhaled sharply.
He'd painted me in a pale color that wasn't quite white, but almost. My dark hair fell over my shoulders, a stunning and glossy contrast. And all my tattoos were gone.
...Okay, not gone, they were just hidden beneath layers of matte paint. I had guessed that he would be doing that much at least, but what truly startled me was what he'd done to the scars underneath.
He'd painted them gold.
I couldn't stop staring. My chest hurt. I let my eyes flow over the vision of me, over the image of myself in the mirror. My body was suddenly, shockingly unfamiliar, transfigured and transformed beneath his brush. I felt as though he hadn't layered paint on, but rather swept it away, revealing the truth that lay beneath. The skin under the skin. Slowly I lifted my arms and turned, seeing every scar, the new and the old, emblazoned in gold, beautiful and bold. My fingers fluttered over them, wondering how such ugly things could be made to be so lovely. I had no idea what to say.
Malcolm had that effect on me.
He shifted behind me, and I blinked, realizing that I'd completely forgotten he was there. I glanced back at him and I saw that, in his hands, he held the vase I had broken at the auction and then found repaired in the closet. It seemed so long ago now that I almost didn't recognize it.
It was gorgeous, and now that I finally had a good look at the vase, I realized what Malcolm had done to me: the cracks made by its shattering were now filled with gold.
Malcolm cleared his throat. “The art is called kintsugi,” he said. His
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